SHOOTING

BUTTERFLIES
T.M. CLARK

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First Published 2014
First Australian Paperback Edition 2014
ISBN 978 174356871 2

SHOOTING BUTTERFLIES
© 2014 by T.M. Clark
Australian Copyright 2014
New Zealand Copyright 2014

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 CHAPTER

1
The Karoi

Mission Station Outside Sinoia, Southern Rhodesia

1946

The hunting dogs went ballistic. Their excited howling rang through
the African bush.
‘See, told you there were animals here. They have something cor-
nered,’ Kirk said as he ran next to Impendla. ‘Come on, run faster.’
Impendla stopped.
‘No, mukomana Kirk, we go no further. Call your dogs, bring
them back.’
‘What? No, listen, they have something.’
The dogs continued their baying, the noise high pitched and for-
eign in the bush.
‘We go no further. Bad muti here. Look,’ Impendla said as he
pointed to a few feathers strung together like a bunch of leaves and
hung on a tree.
‘How can you tell that’s muti? That looks like just some stuff in
a tree!’
4 T . M . C lark

‘No, mukomana. There is evil in this place. We must not go

closer.’
Kirk looked at the tree. Luckily there were no thorns. It was
just a leopard tree, its bark changed colour in patches of green and
silver. The trunk was slim but solid. The bark was rough beneath
his hands, but it made digging the toes of his boots in easier as he
climbed up and onto the first branch. He reached downwards, his
fingers edging towards the bundle.
‘Aiwa, don’t touch that. The Nehanda, she puts those where you
must not go. This ground it is sacred to her, like a church is to you.
No one must touch that, the tokoloshe will get you. Spirits sent from
the Mwari.’
Kirk laughed. ‘My father says you natives are all talk and there
is no such thing as bad magic. And he says your Nehanda and the
sangoma are lost souls who need saving.’
‘Aiwa!’ Impendla shook his head. ‘Mwari is the one Shona god,
the high god.’
‘Impendla, you live in the mission. My father taught you in
school that there is only one God, and he’s not Shona.’
‘There is muti here. The Nyamhika Nehanda, she’s a spirit, the
voice of Mwari, and she said her bones would rise up again. We
must not be the ones who disturb her. She can be a mhondoro, a
lion spirit, and if we disturb her, she can pass into us and then we
will hold the spirit.’
Kirk shook his head. ‘That’s not true, Impendla. Who told you
that?’ he asked as he drew his hunting knife and cut the bark twine
holding the crude bundle in the tree.
It tumbled to the ground.
Kirk shinnied down the tree and kicked it with his foot. The
feathers tied around the bundle parted and it split apart. A strong
stench of carrion swamped the boys, and something else, some-
thing worse than any rotten eggs Kirk had ever smelt.
For a moment they just looked at it, then Impendla dropped to
his knees and hung his head and began to wail. ‘Do you know what
you have done, mukomana? You have angered the Mwari.’
 S hooting B utterflies 5

‘Pish-posh,’ Kirk said, ‘that’s nothing except a bit of powder with

a bad smell. The sangoma probably collected it somewhere near the
hot springs or something. Come on, I’m going to see what the dogs
have got us.’
He hitched the rifle higher on his shoulder and strode towards
the howling dogs, but realising he was alone, he turned back to
Impendla. ‘You coming with me?’
‘Aiwa. Aiwa.’ Impendla shook his head.
Kirk shrugged and continued to follow the sound of the dogs,
smacking the tall grass away from his face as he went.
‘Superstitious native!’ he cursed.
The howls of the dogs became more frantic and he began to a
run. Hunting for meat rations for the kitchen in the mission station
had recently become one of his responsibilities and he took it seri-
ously. His father had told him if the boys didn’t get fresh meat, the
people would eat only vegetables and sadza for dinner.
He hated the vegetables Sister Mary always put on his tin plate,
and couldn’t understand why he should be grateful for mushy carrots,
smelly turnips and a wild spinach mixture that tasted terrible. But
since he always felt hungry he knew better than to complain about
the food, because his father would make him feed his meal to some-
one in the sick bay. So he made sure they shot something each day, a
rabbit or a fat guineafowl. Sometimes he’d shoot a small duiker and
the tender meat would be used to make biltong to store in the pantry.
The thicket of trees and tangled bushes that pressed up next to the
grassland narrowed, pushing Kirk forward. He broke through the
long grass into a clearing and stopped dead. His father’s dog pack
yipped and yelped even more now he had joined them, and they
knew they would be rewarded for doing their job.
In a tree was a black woman, screeching and throwing bean pods.
Although the pods hit the dogs every now and again, they were well
trained and kept their prey cornered. As one dog fell back, another
rushed to take its place. Their heads swung to check that he’d seen
what they’d acquired for him, and they wagged their tails excitedly
and yelped a few more times.
6 T . M . C lark

‘Heel!’ he shouted, and the dogs backed away and came to stand
at his side. Quiet but alert, their ears erect, not ready to give up
on their prey just yet. The oldest bitch whined. ‘Heel, Mylani!’
he commanded.
She rushed closer to his side and sat close beside him, submissive
to her little master, but she remained alert and watched the tree.
Kirk stared as the woman climbed down and approached him,
her knobkerrie raised. She shouted at him in a native language he
couldn’t understand. He couldn’t even catch a few words, it was
gibberish to his ears.
Her chest was bare and painted in white, with dark red stripes
and dots across her belly. At her waist she wore a leather thong
decorated with strips of different animal skins that had curled
as they dried. Many of the pieces of skin flashed different colours
as the hair had not been removed from them, and the leather was
untanned. But his eyes were drawn to the mummified remains
attached to the bottom of each strip. Small cats, rodents and even
tiny jackal heads all seemed to look at him at once, their beady
black eyes taking him by surprise.
Kirk took a step backwards. He pulled his hat off his head and
crossed his chest. ‘God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy
Ghost,’ he said as he repeated the cross.
His other hand touched Mylani’s back and she growled, her
hackles standing up. He gripped the skin on her neck, more to
steady himself than to stop her aggression towards the stranger.
Mylani snarled.
But his eyes were no longer on the witch.
In the lower branches of the tree, just high enough not to be
mauled by any passing hyena, were five children, not much older
than him. Three boys and two girls. They were hanging by their
feet like pigs in the smokehouse. The boys had fresh warrior marks
carved in the skin on their faces. Across their young cheeks and
over their chests the blood, red even on black skin, was akin to
battle paint on a warrior. Bound to the side of each boy was an
assegai and a small fighting shield.
 S hooting B utterflies 7

The girls were also suspended by their feet, hanging like huge
cocoons around the tree. Mummified animals were arranged on
their skin skirts, which dangled around their necks like the lace
collars the white ladies wore to church on a Sunday. The girls’
chests were bare and he could see that each girl had just started to
come into her bosom, the tiny nubs hardly visible beneath the pat-
terns that had been painted on their bodies in the same white and
red that decorated the sangoma. Their eyes were blank in death, the
flies thick all over their lips and crawling inside their noses.
He closed his eyes to try to erase the scene and put his hands over
his ears as the children called to him in his head.
‘Help us, help us.’
But when he opened his eyes, he could still see them. The image
was real, but their earth-bound calls for help had long since been
squelched.
Mylani took a step forward and her growl changed pitch. Kirk
quickly looked back to the sangoma. She seemed afraid to come
closer to the dogs but stood shouting and waving her knobkerrie
around, gesturing at him. She began to sing. It was unlike any sing-
ing he’d ever heard, and he’d listened to lots of black people sing-
ing, in church, while they tended the garden, even when they were
clearing trees in the forest. The singing quietened the children’s
voices in his head, but it made the dogs more aggressive.
The sangoma ignored the warning from his dogs and stepped
closer. Kirk didn’t see the knobkerrie swing, but Mylani dropped to
the dirt and was instantly silenced.
Suddenly Impendla was behind him, pulling him away. As Kirk
turned to run, his father’s rifle slipped from his shoulder to fall in
the dust.
‘Mhanya!’ Impendla shouted as Kirk turned back to retrieve it.
‘Leave it. She’s going to kill you!’
Kirk ran.
The boys fled back through the grass, the dogs with them, as if
they realised their roles had changed from the hunters to those being
hunted. The sangoma pursued them, wielding her deadly knobkerrie.
8 T . M . C lark

Impendla tripped and Kirk stopped to help his friend up. ‘Come
on, come on,’ he said. Now that he was running he didn’t want to stop.
He wanted to get as far away from the dead children in the tree as they
could. Away from poor Mylani lying dead. Away from the sangoma.
The boys ran for the safety of the mission station. The dogs ran
too, their pink tongues lolling out the side of their mouths, saliva
drooling.
‘Mhanya,’ Impendla said as he hurried Kirk on when Kirk slowed.
They could no longer hear the sangoma chasing them but they knew
she was out there still.
At last the mission came into sight, the wood smoke from the
donkey boiler curling into the green canopy of bushland around
it. They could hear the sounds of men cultivating the vegetable
field, the heavy thud of budzas as they dug furrows and removed
unwanted weeds, an easy rhythm, as the steel scraped the ground
and then returned to the air to strike the dirt again. Singing wafted
up to them, the melodious sound of African voices joined in an
age-old tune.
Kirk stopped and bent over to catch his breath. A stitch in his
side pulled the muscles taut. He gulped air as he straightened and
stretched his cramping stomach.
‘My father’s rifle!’ he panted. ‘I have to go back.’
‘No mukomana, you can never go to that place again. We have
angered the spirits of the ancestors. Only bad things will happen if
we go back.’
‘Maybe tomorrow she’ll have gone away?’ Kirk asked. He
straightened and began to walk towards the mission at a slower
pace, still holding his side.
‘No, she’s everywhere. She’s a sangoma! A spirit medium for
Nehanda. A Karoi —what you would call a “little witch”. You know
the Chirorodziva Pool at the caves? The deep one with the blue
waters? The sangoma is the person who calms the spirits that catch
your stone if you toss one into the waters. If you throw a stone, you
stir up and insult the Shona heroes who were killed by the Nguni
raiders, you cause unrest in the ancestors’ bones at the bottom of
 S hooting B utterflies 9

the pool, where they are watching, still protecting their homelands.
They come to get you while you sleep. They take you away and no
one ever sees you again.’
‘No one believes in that stuff.’
‘Aiwa, do not say that, mukomana. It is true. The sangomas, they
are the only ones that can take away the curse the ancestors put on
the man who throws the stone. Only the Karoi.’
Kirk looked behind them then continued to walk towards the
mission.
‘What else do your people say about the caves and the blue
water?’ he asked.
‘That there are many bones in the pools, not just those of the
Shona people. But also some maybe from the great Mzilikazi’s
amawarrior, and some from the white people who came here long
ago. They wait forever in the cave, trying to get out and go home to
their own hunting grounds and ikhaya.’
‘But that was years ago. The Matabele wars—’
‘The ancestors, they never forget. The Karoi can choose to save
you or she can choose to help the spirits if that’s what she wants. If
you want a person to die and they have not cast a stone, then you
go see her and she can call those spirits.’
‘My father says that’s all native superstitions. None of it is real,’
Kirk said confidently. ‘We visited those caves on the way to Salis-
bury last month. My father stopped and we ate lunch there beside
the blue water. The white people call it the Sinoia Caves. The only
ghosts we heard were our echoes as we called out hello.’
‘The Reverend can say anything because he only believes in his
one god that he says is more powerful, and is gentle, but that is not
our way, mukomana. That is not the way in Africa.’
‘Kirk! Impendla!’ Sister Mary called out loudly and waved to
them from the mission.
Impendla turned to Kirk. ‘Come on, better get back and tell
them that the dogs found nothing.’
‘But Sixpence will want to know where Mylani is. He’ll go look-
ing for her,’ Kirk said.
10 T . M . C lark

‘Don’t tell him about Mylani. If he asks, tell him she never came
back to us when we called while hunting and we’ll go look for her
tomorrow. Even though we know she’s dead, we can never tell him.
We cannot return to bring her body home. The Karoi, she will find
out and call the spirits!’
‘But what about my father’s rifle?’
Impendla shook his head. ‘It is lost to you.’

Kirk was dressed in his hunting clothes as he entered the mission

church. He had his large knife in its sheath and carried an assegai
that he’d made with Impendla. The thick thatch of the building’s
roof cooled the interior and the wooden framework of the tall
structure created a cathedral-shaped ceiling. Its low exterior white-
washed walls defined where the church was, and kept out the larger
animals, but its open style ensured that the wind freely circulated
through the building. His father stood tall talking with a group of
black women, their coloured clothes bright against the red polished
concrete floor as they sat, their legs stretched outwards. As always,
some nursed babies on their laps or had them attached to their back
with blankets, and small children sat quietly close to their mothers.
Out of habit he looked up to check there were no bats hanging from
the rough wooden rafters as he approached the circle. ‘Father, have
you seen Impendla? I’ve looked everywhere.’
‘No. You spend too much time with him anyway. Remember
that we’re here to spread the word of God, not be converted to the
native ways.’
Kirk pulled a face as his father ruffled his hair.
‘Cook says that guineafowl is better without the lead fragments,
Father,’ he said, but he grimaced as he spoke. The dread of having
to tell his father about the loss of his rifle sat heavy in his stomach.
He knew that when he did tell him there would be trouble and he’d
probably receive a belting. Perhaps he could sneak back later and
get it, when Impendla had calmed down.
His father smiled at him. ‘I agree with Cook. No, I don’t know
where he is, so off you go, keep looking,’ he said. ‘Make sure you
don’t go into the bush without him, though. Understand?’
 S hooting B utterflies 11

Kirk half turned to go.

‘Kirchman Bernard Potgieter, do you understand?’ his father
asked.
He knew his father meant business when he used his whole
name, and there would be no going into the bush today without
Impendla. He had to find him.
Kirk nodded, then ran over the polished cement floor, jumped
nimbly over the low wall that was the outer structure of the church,
and headed towards the compound, the only place he hadn’t looked
for Impendla. He’d already searched all the mission buildings, the
orchard, the field of maize they had planted, where he had run his
hands over the tops of the green plants that now grew almost to his
waist, but he hadn’t located him.
He entered the compound and inhaled the aromas. The smoke
of the cooking fire, the fragrance of slow-cooked meat in a broth.
The kaalnek chickens leapt out his way as he ran past, their feathers
ruffled and their protests loud. But they soon returned to scratching
and pecking in the dirt, searching for something tasty to eat.
He rounded a corner and looked at Impendla’s ikhaya. The kitchen
hut was the centre of Impendla’s home, for many meals they had
sat around the kitchen fire eating sadza and gravy from the enamel
plates. There was always food to eat in Impendla’s kitchen. Its neat
thatched roof was trimmed in a pattern, and smoke clung to the
thatch like a baby monkey to its mother. The top half of the build-
ing was whitewashed, and the bottom half was smeared with a black
mixture of mud and dung. Next to the round kitchen was the sleep-
ing ikhaya. Made of mud and cow dung, it wasn’t as neatly decorated
as the kitchen, but it was always in order and the floor well swept.
Impendla’s mother worked in the hospital section of the mission.
She tidied the beds and washed the floors, and it was her job to put
the mosquito nets down over the patients. But today she wasn’t in
the sick bay. She was sitting in the doorway of the ikhaya holding a
bunch of colourful feathers. Kirk looked closer. Among the feath-
ers, he could see the mummified head of a rodent, and then he
noticed that the skin it was attached to was the same colour red as
the markings on the sangoma’s skin the day before.
12 T . M . C lark

A cold snake crept along Kirk’s spine.

‘Mhoroi, amai,’ he greeted Impendla’s mother. ‘I’m looking for
Impendla.’
She glanced up at him and he could see there were tears in her
eyes, her face wet with those that had already run down her cheeks
and onto her white uniform that was now brown from sitting in
the dirt.
‘He is taken.’
‘Taken?’
‘He is taken.’ She nodded and sniffed, unconsciously turning the
colourful package in her hands. Kirk stared. Constructed exactly
like the muti bag he had cut from the tree, the crude leather pouch
was decorated with bright feathers that had been sewed roughly
onto the raw leather with riempies, and then wrapped in the pieces
of skins with the heads attached, their eyes sunken in and dried.
The package had a single drawstring, closing it at the top, but not
sealing in the odour. He’d smelt the same vile stench just yesterday.
Kirk’s stomach heaved and he dry retched.
Terrible dreams of the mutilated children had woken him dur-
ing the night and he’d screamed into the inky darkness. His father
had rushed into his room with a candle to check on him. He hadn’t
told his father anything about the incident, about losing his gun, or
about the dead children who had called to him to help them while
he ran away and abandoned them to the witch.
He’d almost told his father.
Almost.
But as he opened his mouth he’d remembered Impendla, shiver-
ing, the sweat pouring off his forehead. Real fear. Impendla had
been terrified.
Impendla had made him promise not to tell. A promise was your
word, if you were black or white. It was your oath. So he’d kept his
promise to his friend.
Impendla believed in the bad medicine.
Maybe it was real, and she would come for them. So he’d said
nothing.
 S hooting B utterflies 13

‘We’re cursed,’ Impendla’s mother said and she held the bag out
for him.
He looked at her.
He looked at the bag from the Karoi. And he ran screaming.
‘Father! Father! The Karoi has taken Impendla! Father!’
He barrelled into Sister Mary as he ran around the corner, still
screaming, and saw his father rushing towards him.
‘Whoa, Kirk. Slow down. Talk to me.’
‘The Karoi. The witch. She had these bodies hanging in a tree
and I didn’t mean to disturb her when we were hunting. Then she
killed Mylani with her knobkerrie and we ran. Then I lost your
rifle, and now she’s taken Impendla and his mother has the bag of
bad muti from the tree. Father, the tokoloshe is real!’
‘Come, take me to this place,’ his father said as he took Kirk’s
hand in his and ran towards the stables.
The horses were out in the field, and the groom was just putting
new hay into the stalls, helped by his young son.
‘Saddle the horses. We need a search party to find Impendla,’
Kirk’s father instructed the groom. He turned to the child. ‘Tendai,
quickly run to the church and ring the bell. Keep ringing it for a
long time so that everyone comes in to the mission. There is bad
trouble.’
Kirk watched as Tendai sprinted away to the church, the urgency
in his father’s voice clearly understood by the six-year-old. Moments
later the dull clanging of the bell rang out, echoing across the valley
and calling the people to the mission.
The reverend helped the groom to saddle up the mission’s three
horses and pull the two donkeys inside as well. Kirk stayed close
as instructed and watched as the workers, worshippers, and people
from the small kraals nearby gathered in the courtyard outside the
church. He only ever saw so many people all together when his
father handed out Christmas bonsellas in celebration of the birth
of Jesus.
Tendai was still ringing the bell.
Clang-clang.
14 T . M . C lark

Clang-clang.
When the horses were ready, the groom passed the reverend the
reins of his black stallion. Taking them, Kirk’s father walked out of
the stables and stopped in front of the crowd. A hush fell over the
people. Someone had told Tendai to stop ringing the bell because it
clanked once more before silence descended over the mission.
‘One of ours has been taken from us during the night. He is in
trouble. I know about the custom of giving up one of your children
for a plot of land, or to the sangoma in exchange for the marriage of
another child into a wealthier family. But Impendla was not given
to anyone for muti, he is our friend. We need to find him. Arm
yourselves with anything you can find, bring your picks and bud-
zas, there is trouble! Huya pano, we need to save him. I pray that
God be with us today in our search, and that the Almighty will
protect Impendla wherever he is.’
He mounted his horse, and then reached down to help as the
groom lifted Kirk up to sit in front of the saddle. The people of the
mission station hurried to do his bidding. One of their own was in
real danger. With hushed voices, as if scared of what they would
find, the men and women gathered together, armed with tools from
around the mission and their own kraals, including shields and
assegais.
‘Which way, Kirk?’ his father asked.
Kirk pointed towards the bushes, to where he and Impendla had
last seen the sangoma. They moved off slowly as a group, the rever-
end in front, his stallion’s nostrils flaring as it tossed its head and
played with the metal bit between its teeth, uneasy at the crowd
that followed.
More people joined them, emerging from the bushes after they
passed the fields, armed with their traditional shields, hunting
assegais and knobkerries. Ready to fight.
Soon a soft church hymn began from within the mob. Men,
women and children joined in, the song grew louder as people heard
it and added their voices, so that the gathering was united in a song
of prayer. The procession moved through the bush, not knowing
 S hooting B utterflies 15

what they were heading into, but ready to help the reverend out of
a deep respect for him, and face whatever they needed to.
Seated against his father, Kirk found the courage deep inside
himself to save Impendla now that their secret was told. The seven
remaining hunting dogs ran in front, yelping in excitement, as if
knowing that something else other than hunting was happening.
Soon they came to the place where the foul bag of feathers and
leaves had fallen to the ground. Only it had been removed. Kirk
looked upwards. It was back in its original place, tied to the tree,
but now there was a black marking carved deep into the tree branch
underneath it. And new feathers. Blue and purple feathers, like that
of the lilac-breasted roller, showed bright against the brown and
green bark. The same feathers that had been tied around the bundle
left with Impendla’s mother.
A warning.
A promise.
The mission people refused to go any further. The women sat
down and started wailing, the hymn forgotten. The strong realisa-
tion that they were dealing with a Karoi and the tokoloshe sat heavily
upon the sombre crowd.
‘They are in there, Father. They hang on a tree.’ Kirk pointed.
Now that he had unburdened part of the story, it was easier to tell
his father the rest.
‘Hunt!’ his father commanded the dogs.
Released, the dogs streaked off into the bush and moments later
the people heard their hunting call.
Something was still there.
The reverend addressed the crowd once more. ‘I know you believe
in the sangoma, the Karoi and the tokoloshe, but God will help us at
this crossroad. He is testing our strength, to see if we are ready to enter
the kingdom of heaven. One of your own is in there. Those who follow
me will be the ones who trust in the Lord Jesus, the Almighty God.
I ask that those of you who will not come with us stay here and pray
for us. Let us know that even if you can’t be with us in body, that your
hearts are with us as we go into the darkness and seek out Impendla.’
16 T . M . C lark

The reverend urged his horse further into the long grass. Kirk
looked back over his shoulder to see who had followed them. The
groom was closest on his horse, followed by a handful of men,
their assegais ready. The two old men who rode the donkeys kicked
at their ribs to hurry them along. A few women followed as well,
including Impendla’s mother, a pick held in her hands in a death
grip as she walked hesitantly behind her husband.
Somewhere ahead the dogs were going mad, yipping, barking
and baying, calling to their humans to hurry up and come and see
what they had to show them.
The stallion cleared the grass and stepped into the clearing, and
the reverend pulled him up in an abrupt halt. The stallion’s nostrils
flared and his skin shivered. His body twitched.
‘Impendla!’ Kirk cried out and started to jump off the horse, but
his father restrained him.
Impendla hung by his feet in the tree, the reverend’s hunting gun
and a warrior’s shield tied to his body. His blood dripped from the
fresh warrior wounds carved into his skin and onto the dry dust of
the African continent.
Now there were six children’s bodies hanging in the tree, and no
sign of the Karoi.
‘Holy Father, help us. What have these savages done now?’ The
reverend began to pray.